Why did Mozart only write two symphonies in a minor key?
Mozart wrote over fifty symphonies, but only two of them, the 25th and 40th, are in a minor key. Interestingly, those two are some of his most highly regarded and most often played works. Why did he write only two symphonies in a minor key?
One argument might be the minor keys are, at least now, considered to have a more doleful sound and the time of the 40th Mozart was having financial problems, but were minor keys considered doleful in Mozart's time the way they are now? Did he ever write anything giving a clue to his motivations in his compositions?
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A possible reason could be "natural horns and trumpets." To use these instruments in a minor key, either you can't use the (major) third from the instruments' harmonic series of notes, or you can write for two instruments in different keys (e.g. one horn in G and one in B flat in G minor) and then dovetail the required notes together from both instruments. Both options are limiting for the composer, and the second may have been problematic in performance as well.
When a piece using natural brass instruments modulate to another key, the available notes were restricted to some extend regardless of whether the new key was major or minor, and often the composer's solution to the problem was simply to give the brass (and timpani) a rest during the modulation.
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